The Alternative Green Energy Thread

GreatApe

pile-o-stone wrote: »

I'm not sure how you expect the kids to live their lives differently? I'm sure the author of the rant had a father who worked and a mother who stayed at home cooking nutritious meals from ingredients sourced from from local markets. Since supermarkets destroyed local grocery stores and ridiculous cost of housing and general living means that both parents have to work to make ends meet (if both parents are still together) which means the kids are living on convenience foods or takeaways.

I guess I'm basically asking how you and the author of that rant think the kids can turn the clock back to the 1960s and undo the changes that your and the author's generation made?

I'm sure that in your day the roads were a lot emptier and so journeys were a lot quicker and safer and schools were a lot closer too. I also guess you didn't have to worry about being knifed or run the gauntlet of drug dealers either.

Crime has never been lower Life expectancy has never been higher
All things considered people live better lives today than they did fifty years ago

Fossil fuels, plastics, modern life, all positive good things

How many people want to go back to the high winter death rates ore mass affordable central heating?

How many people want to go back to the local high street with low quality expensive foods?
Today food is high quality and very affordable. Ask your grandma if that was the case when she were a lad haha

And the rest of your rant is mostly nonessential too

Like the assertion women didn't work in the past
We have actual census data which shows 50 years ago women worked plenty
The activity rate was 53% it is indeed higher today at 72% but this is largely due to women were able to retire at age 60 while men had to work to age 65 that's sexism for you! That accounts for about 10% point of the difference excluding that you can say it was 63% Vs 72% today

Also men activity rate has fallen from 92% to 80% during the same time
If you take a couple then the total amount of work isn't much higher at all
92%+53% = 145%
72%+80% = 152%
A household works a little more today mostly due to women retirement age increases

The idea of the full time stay at home mum and the 9-5 dad was a middle class dream not a reality for most people

Also home ownership is at near record highs for UK born citizens and much higher than 59 years ago


Some things are certainly different on paper
Like much More divorce but that doesn't mean things were great in the past
My grandparents argued like cats and dogs all the way to the end
They were married 70 years and had seven kids didn't mean it was always harmony
But social norms meant they didn't divorce
No idea which is better today with high divorce rates or yesteryear with low divorce rates and people staying together even though they would fight most the time

Cardew

GreatApe wrote: »

Also home ownership is at near record highs for UK born citizens and much higher than 59 years ago

The traditional role of children used to be to help support their retired parents.



Without entering the debate about bygone days, the high home ownership rates, and soaring house prices, mean the 'Bank of Mum and Dad' is accessed far more than yesteryear and often large sums are inherited by offspring.

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

That’s a dystopian view of the average Joe’s world that I am happy that I don’t have to share.

Yes my dad worked and my mum was a housewife and my wife stayed at home for 19 years bringing up kids. But we made do with secondhand carpets furniture and TVs. Look at life now with everyone living beyond their means necessitating both parents going out to work. Just look at the BMWs and Mercs now on every housing estate, several foreign or skiing holidays a year. It is the sense of entitlement that pervades society nowadays which parents have subconsciously instilled in their kids. That’s why kids won’t pick up their own rubbish, that’s why our streets countryside and oceans are littered with rubbish.

We couldn’t do much 50 or even 20 years ago about our cars polluting the environment but we and the younger generation can all do something about the plastic and other rubbish that the modern lifestyle adds to it. Encouraging today’s youth to play the blame game won’t solve anything.

I won’t enter into a prolonged debate. You have your view and I have mine. Reply by all means but I’ll park my contribution here.

You can't blame him he is fed a fairy tale of the past being easy and great without people correcting him

The past was difficult in many ways
The biggest factor imo is that normal food was a huge household cost
I recall looking at the price of basics like eggs they were ~10x more expensive Vs wages


Houses were cheaper in the past!!
Then why is ownership rates higher today than fifty years ago?

People didn't get divorced they were content and happy!!
Sure they didn't get divorced that didn't mean they were more content and happy many people who disliked each other stayed together

Women stayed at home!!
Not true women had an employment rate of 53% in 1971 this was 65% in 2011 not a huge increase as many seem to suggest virtually no women worked and virtually all women work today both are grossly incorrect

GreatApe

Cardew wrote: »

The traditional role of children used to be to help support their retired parents.

Which is true both directly and indirectly today so what's the difference?

Without entering the debate about bygone days, the high home ownership rates, and soaring house prices, mean the 'Bank of Mum and Dad' is accessed far more than yesteryear and often large sums are inherited by offspring.

This is mostly to do with having fewer children
If you have 10 kids they just get 1/10th of an already small inheritance
If you have 2 kids they get 50% of a much bigger inheritance partly because as time goes by inheritances can compound and also not having to feed cloth and school eight additional children allows lower cost living.

And yes I agree inheritance are huge nowadays
~£200 billion a year transferred from old to younger just in the UK
They've never had it so good. What did the kids of the 1920s inherit. A world war and rationing

pile-o-stone

JKenH wrote: »

That’s a dystopian view of the average Joe’s world that I am happy that I don’t have to share.

I won’t enter into a prolonged debate. You have your view and I have mine. Reply by all means but I’ll park my contribution here.

I'm glad you don't have to share it. I was born in the late 60s and so I know what life was like in the 70s (We too had a milk man, and I walked to a local school). I left school in the mid 80s and I'm now in my 50s so I have lived thru the rise of McDonalds and the creation of the consumer culture. I'm from Northern England and saw the destruction of Jobs.

Don't worry about replying. I responded not to try and change your view because I know that is impossible, but I do think it's important to push back on the more ridiculous statements from yourself and your other logons (GA, Cardew, et al).

JKenH

Cardew wrote: »

The traditional role of children used to be to help support their retired parents.

Haha, I wish.

Someone more recently pointed out to me that children never stop being dependants.

joefizz

In other news....


The hydrogen bus trial just got the green light over here, hydrogen generator co-located on small wind farm to take the excess and being used to provide hydrogen for 3 new busses in Belfast. Small steps but certainly in a small place with excess and often curtailed wind power it makes sense.



Maybe Toyota have it right after all ;-)

JKenH

Coastalwatch wrote: »

Nick, how about posting something positive for a change instead of your continual sniping and griping!

And you aren’t sniping or griping, then?

JKenH

Coastalwatch wrote: »

Nick, how about posting something positive for a change instead of your continual sniping and griping!

I am always surprised at the offence taken by some contributors to fairly harmless remarks but even more surprised when they post in such a discourteous manner. For someone who isn’t very actively involved in discussions on this board to come out and accuse Nick not being positive and of “continual sniping and griping” is out of order in my view.

The last contribution I recall from Coastalwatch on an actual discussion (as opposed to the daily generation thread) was to criticise some helpful advice as “ Er, but not exactly Green though, is it?”
That was hardly positive.

I get the feeling that certain members feel that any level of personal attack is justified against those who don’t completely toe the thick green line.

If anyone cares to look back they will find Nick makes some very valuable technical contributions particularly in relation to battery storage and is very supportive of the Tesla. Why can some people only see one side of things?

And why almost every day do we have to put up with this “denier” nonsense? What exactly is it we are denying? Just follow the thread back please for the context of Nick’s comments that have caused Coastalwatch to react so disproportionately. GA has gone. Is it so important to drive me and Nick off the forum as well?

When you read a post it is too easy to read into it what you expect to see. If you have a preconception that a post or a link is going to be negative you tend to read it that way and jump to the wrong conclusions. I have absolutely no intention of disrupting the forum that I came to 19 months ago to learn more about RE technology. Sometimes I will ask the ‘wrong’ questions. Sometimes I question posts haranguing the oil industry for what happened in the past when to me this forum should be about the technology, not the politics.

Could people just back off a bit, please. Try and read what I write, what Nick writes, in a positive less negative light, please. I don’t have any agenda. (I have no connection with any FF organisation and never have had should that be in doubt). I can’t speak for Nick but from what I have seen he is on here for the tech not arguments.

Give it a try please and see how it goes.

Cardew

JKenH wrote: »

I get the feeling that certain members feel that any level of personal attack is justified against those who don’t completely toe the thick green line.

It has happened for 10 years and many people have been 'driven' from this forum.



The latest addressed to you, is that you are posting as Great Ape and myself. An accusation supported by a couple of other posters.

pile-o-stone
Don't worry about replying. I responded not to try and change your view because I know that is impossible, but I do think it's important to push back on the more ridiculous statements from yourself and your other logons (GA, Cardew, et al)
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Oh dear, that was such a disappointing response from two of your logins.

A poor effort from your Cardew logon about coal tar soap and a nonsensical post from your GreatApe logon about diabetes.